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Handy guidance on ritual meanings in cave art (2)

From
Robert Winston, London, UK

The loss of fingers seen in the stencils on the walls of Gargas cave in France seems to me unlikely to be due to frostbite. Fingers are often missing, but never the thumb, surely ruling this out. It is also less likely to be due to some ritual amputation.

Different fingers are missing on different hands, suggesting that the remaining fingers are being held erect. Given that these images are deep in the cave, it seems more likely that the slivers of animal bones inserted into crevices in the cave walls near the stencils are relevant. Surely the slivers represent …